family members on the "wrong" side

[tonypaj]

A lot of danes (civil as well as armypersonnel) had signed up to help Finland against the Soviet aggression and the Winter War. But never came to fight there, because it ended before they got into the fight.
They did it - and even he thought about it - because the Soviet Union was "the common enemy" back then.
And even the Nazis helped Finland.

Being Finnish, and my mother being a refugee from Karelia (she left her home with a suitcase in her hand, and never returned), my grandfather having fought two wars against the Reds, first the Finnish ones, then the Russian ones, I have to dispute a bit your story.

Finns fought the Winter War pretty much on their own, no real help was forthcoming from anywhere, be it Danes, Nazis, Swedes, anyone. We fought the war for our independence, that was precious, young, and not tradable. We would have fought the same if the aggressors had been the previous colonial power, Sweden, or anyone else. It was a fight against the oppressor who happened to be communist and a colonial power that had ruled over us for more than a 100 years. We paid dearly, but for comparison just see what happened to Estonians, e.g., who chose a different route facing the same enemy.

I asked my father the last time I saw him before he died about the war and my grandfather, whether they were Nazis, or Nazi sympathizers (have no idea why, the conversation just went there). He was a young man of 17 when the war ended and he categorically stated that "not a chance, it was not about that".

To answer the original question, my family was clearly on the wrong side. That side was simply our own, and we were on our own. We lost our land, our farm, but got back up again. To add, I've lived away from Finland for the last 20-25 years, I want no part of it, really, my home is today in France. That changes nothing about my feelings for the sacrifice my people made then.

 

[David Conwill]

Spitfire’s post makes me think of a tangentially related topic I heard about in college: One of my history professors was a Wayne State University graduate (a moderately large school in urban Detroit). He mentioned once seeing on campus a memorial to Wayne University (the “State” part came after World War II) students who had gone off to Spain during the Spanish Civil War to fight on the Republican side. He was fond of saying “it was a different time, when students would spend their spring break fighting fascism.”

I guess to those Wayne students, the fascists were the bigger common enemy than Stalin. After the war, of course, the Churchillian view of the Russian Communists would prevail. You know: “If Hitler invaded Hell, I would at least manage to put in a good word for the Devil in the House of Commons.”

-Dave

 

[spacegirlblues]

Both sides of my family fought for the axis.
My great-grandpa was a Generalleutnant in the Wehrmacht, I believe.
My grandpa was in the kriegsmarine, he was drafted near the end of the war. He doesn't really talk about his time in it, mainly due to being bitter over the fact he was almost finished with his PHD when he was drafted in lol. I do know he narrowly avoided being put into the u-boots because he knew how to fly.
His brothers were in both the Waffen SS and the Wehrmacht. Most of them were on the eastern front.

I've always found it very, very hard to think of those who fought for the axis as evil-baby-eating sadists. While there were certainly those who were beyond evil, not all of them were! 99% of my family members who fought for Germany are the sweetest people I have ever encountered.
As my Grandfather once said, "It was what we had to do at the time.".

Sorry for the wall of text.

 

[Spitfire]

Being Finnish, and my mother being a refugee from Karelia (she left her home with a suitcase in her hand, and never returned), my grandfather having fought two wars against the Reds, first the Finnish ones, then the Russian ones, I have to dispute a bit your story.

Finns fought the Winter War pretty much on their own, no real help was forthcoming from anywhere, be it Danes, Nazis, Swedes, anyone. We fought the war for our independence, that was precious, young, and not tradable. We would have fought the same if the aggressors had been the previous colonial power, Sweden, or anyone else. It was a fight against the oppressor who happened to be communist and a colonial power that had ruled over us for more than a 100 years. We paid dearly, but for comparison just see what happened to Estonians, e.g., who chose a different route facing the same enemy.

I asked my father the last time I saw him before he died about the war and my grandfather, whether they were Nazis, or Nazi sympathizers (have no idea why, the conversation just went there). He was a young man of 17 when the war ended and he categorically stated that "not a chance, it was not about that".

To answer the original question, my family was clearly on the wrong side. That side was simply our own, and we were on our own. We lost our land, our farm, but got back up again. To add, I've lived away from Finland for the last 20-25 years, I want no part of it, really, my home is today in France. That changes nothing about my feelings for the sacrifice my people made then.

I do not for a moment doubt your fathers memory of the war and why it was fought - on the other hand, sometimes a mans memory can not hold a hole war - and everything that happend.
It is a historic fact that around 8000 swedes, 1000 danes and 900 norwegians (among them the wellknown norwegian resistancemember Max Manus) signed up to help Finland.

Some of them (the norwegians and some of the swedes and danes) were fighting - others only arrived a few weeks before the war ended in march 1940. And they could go back home again.

Whether they all were nazi sympathizers, I have allready stated, they were not. Some just came to help, some wanted to fight "the reds" and some became nazis. One of the leader of the danish contingent was an officer from the Royal Danish Guard - Von Schallburgh. He later signed up in the Waffen SS and fought - and died - on the Eastern front.
In his - so called - honour a terrorcorps of danish nazis were named after him. They were the most hated of all the german and nazi corps in Denmark.
Pure 100% bastards!

Mind you, I have great respect for what the Finnish population had to go through and the way their soldiers fought - but they were not totaly alone.
There was a will to help - but the timing was wrong.

 

[tonypaj]

I do not for a moment doubt your fathers memory of the war and why it was fought - on the other hand, sometimes a mans memory can not hold a hole war - and everything that happend.
It is a historic fact that around 8000 swedes, 1000 danes and 900 norwegians (among them the wellknown norwegian resistancemember Max Manus) signed up to help Finland.

Some of them (the norwegians and some of the swedes and danes) were fighting - others only arrived a few weeks before the war ended in march 1940. And they could go back home again.

Whether they all were nazi sympathizers, I have allready stated, they were not. Some just came to help, some wanted to fight "the reds" and some became nazis. One of the leader of the danish contingent was an officer from the Royal Danish Guard - Von Schallburgh. He later signed up in the Waffen SS and fought - and died - on the Eastern front.
In his - so called - honour a terrorcorps of danish nazis were named after him. They were the most hated of all the german and nazi corps in Denmark.
Pure 100% bastards!

Mind you, I have great respect for what the Finnish population had to go through and the way their soldiers fought - but they were not totaly alone.
There was a will to help - but the timing was wrong.

You're right, there were Swedish volunteers, mainly on guard duty, they lost what, 33 men or something like that. We lost about 26'700, the Russians ten times that.

Anyway, I do not think we will ever agree about this (and it's off topic), so it would be a futile thing to discuss further. However, regarding the Winter War and what the Nazis were up to, just check out the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact. What happened later, that's another discussion, for other boards.

 

[Spitfire]

I am kind of sad, if your look on this whole affair also is the official Finnish way to look at the young men who came to help.
Whether they were "only" on guard duty or being killed like the two danish navypilots who among them shot down 4 enemy airplanes before they burned to death in their finnish Gloster Gladiators.

But - anyway - I only mentioned the Finland Volunteers in order to describe what made certain people choose which side they were fighting on later on in WWII. Not - in any way - to downscale the losses or the courage of the Finnish people.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

Many people today do not realize that before the war a major focus of political debate was Communism vs. Fascism. In a world ravaged by the Depression both noxious ideologies gained a significant number of adherents throughout the world who saw either Red or Brown (to the exclusion of practically anything else) as the "wave of the future." A debate which first came to its most logical conclusion with the ideological lightning rod known as the Spanish Civil War.

 

[Lindabelle]

My grandmother had 2 sisters. one sister was married to a German who had been in the Hitler youth. Her other sister was married to a Dutchman who was in the Dutch underground. He hated his German brother-in-law because he was German and had been in the Hitler Youth. He just wouldn't speak to him at all.. He just hated him for being German. As a young girl I loved both of them and didn't know that fact until my mother told me years later. My grandfather was English and liked and got along with both of them.

 

[Phantomfixer]

SO Lindabelle, did the brothers in law not know each before the war I take it? If they did that would make make for a great dinner conversation. So I must assume that they met/married after the war?

 

[Lindabelle]

Hi Phantomfixer. As far as I know they had both moved to Australia after the war and met my Grandma's sisters here. I remember them both being at my grandmas at the same time and there not being any nastiness. But then my grandfather was a good christian and wouldn't have stood for any nonsense. I do remember my Dutch "uncle" wearing clogs and beings fascinated by this as a kid. I just think it illustrates how senseless war can be. Hating someone you don't really know based on their country. But I guess we don't know what he saw when he was in the Dutch underground, so I cannot judge him for that. At our church when I was young I remember an older man who attended church regularly who hated the Japanese because he had worked on the Burma railroad and had seen some horrible sights when he was a prisoner of war. On the other hand a family friend of ours dad was in Auschwitz. His crime as far as the Nazi's were concerned was that he was Polish. He survived the camps and when he was liberated met and married a nice German girl. They moved out here to Australia and had a family and a very long happy marriage. The Nazis had tried to seperate people and cause such hatred among races and here are these two young people who loved each other in spite of everything they had been through.

 

[Valya]

My great-grandfather fought in both WWI and WWII, both times for the Axis (Italy). Italy still has the draft, so I believe all my family before my parents have been in the military. I know for sure my one of my grandfather's brothers fought and died in WWII, again for the Axis (on the same day his son was born, I find that so sad!). Another of his brothers survived a Soviet POW camp. Apparently they fed him only on potato skins. I would really like to ask him about his experience, but I don't know where he lives or how to contact him, and I fear it might upset him. Does anyone know anything about Soviet POW camps, or life in the Italian military during the war? I would really like to get a better picture of what him and my other relatives went through.

 

[Phantomfixer]

The only thing I know about Soviet POW camps is what I read in Erich Hartmann's book "The Blonde Knight of Germany" it was but a brief description, but you get the feeling that it was not a good place to be. Hard work, bad food, poor medical conditions, cold etc. He spent 10 years in Soviet captivity 45-55.

 

[Theo J.]

re: 'family on the wrong side'...

A very good friend, born in 1969 in then-West Germany, nursed her surviving grandmother through the old lady's final days. The grandkids wanted Grandmother to translate her letters to and from her late husband, written in a now-obsolete form of German script. She VERY reluctantly did so---and thus revealed to the grandchildren that she and their late grandfather were good believing Nazis (he was an SS officer who disappeared on the Russian Front during the war). By a supreme irony, my dad survived the war in Europe because a widowed German farmwife helped him, along with several other guys, in a breakout from a POW compound. They in return helped her and her children to safety across the Allied battle lines. (And, after the war, they sent a lot of CARE packages to her and the kids.)

 

[Guttersnipe]

The only thing I know about Soviet POW camps is what I read in Erich Hartmann's book "The Blonde Knight of Germany" it was but a brief description, but you get the feeling that it was not a good place to be. Hard work, bad food, poor medical conditions, cold etc. He spent 10 years in Soviet captivity 45-55.

For an interesting account of post-war Soviet captivity see Sigfried Knappe's autobiography, Soldat.

 

[Young fogey]

None in my family but...

I've known British, American, Russian and Ukrainian WWII veterans; the Russians and Ukrainians were in the German Army. And I understand and respect that. Like the Finns and the British veteran I knew who survived the blitz, they were defending their homes (from the Soviets).

 

[Theo J.]

Definitely---most peoples' choices in wartime are limited to what's immediately before them; the massive scale of events doesn't give most the time, information, or incentive to do otherwise. The "right side/wrong side" component can only really be applied in retrospect.

 

[Hal]

My great-grandfather fought in both WWI and WWII, both times for the Axis (Italy). Italy still has the draft, so I believe all my family before my parents have been in the military. I know for sure my one of my grandfather's brothers fought and died in WWII, again for the Axis (on the same day his son was born, I find that so sad!). Another of his brothers survived a Soviet POW camp. Apparently they fed him only on potato skins. I would really like to ask him about his experience, but I don't know where he lives or how to contact him, and I fear it might upset him. Does anyone know anything about Soviet POW camps, or life in the Italian military during the war? I would really like to get a better picture of what him and my other relatives went through.

Italy was on the side of the Western allies in WWI.

 

[The Lonely Navigator]

most peoples' choices in wartime are limited to what's immediately before them; the massive scale of events doesn't give most the time, information, or incentive to do otherwise. The "right side/wrong side" component can only really be applied in retrospect.

Well said. While I don't know of anyone who served on the other side - I do have a great uncle who was a bombardier in a B 17 (Lynn Marie) and some other relatives that were in the services during the wartime period - but I've never researched them, as my focus is on the U-Boats.

 

[Kopf-Jaeger]

My Grandfather and one of his brothers served in the Luftwaffe in WW2 while two of the other brothers served in the Kreigsmarine. Another Uncle (Werner) by marriage served in the Kreigsmarine as well. When he would come and visit, my neighbor who had been a paratrooper in WW2 and him would sit and talk for hours about the war like old friends. On the other side of the family, I had a Great Uncle who served in the U.S. Army fighting up through Sicily and Italy while my other Grandfather served in the 2nd Armored Division through France, Belgium and Germany. My Great-Grandfather and his brothers served under the Kaiser in WW1 while a great Uncle on the other side served with the 28 Infantry in the same war and was wounded. So, I had relatives on both sides, in the same theatres in two wars. Just a little odd family history.

 

[The Lonely Navigator]

Re Kopf-Jaeger: Were any of those who served in the Kriegsmarine involved in the U-Boats? If not - do you know of the ships they were with? I'm interested in hearing.